by C C Solomon
Azrael nodded. “Yes, they do.” The angel patted my shoulder. “But we can do this.”
I raised my brows, still surprised that Azrael was starting to be kinder to me. Was it because they were seeing I wasn’t such a horrible person to be around? I hoped so because I was going to be relying on them to have my back out there. I looked over to Faith but she was too busy looking on at the crowd of wraiths in disgust.
She curled her upper lip up. “I can’t believe we are going to be battling gladiator-style over skin like some Silence of the Lambs shit.”
I wasn’t as surprised. Demons loved their battle royals, especially tournaments. Alister used to hold many of them. They were popular betting events. I didn’t want to keep thinking about it. I just wanted to get this over with so I could get to Felix. “Can I count on you out there?”
She turned to me, eyes incredulous. “Do you think I won’t have your back? Listen, we may not have started off so well but I see the love you have for my friend. I’m not going to let anything happen to you out there. Felix would never get over it.” She gave me the slightest of smiles.
“So we’re best friends now.” I looked on at the field of fighters, feeling only a tinge better.
“That is not what I said.”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Me too,” Azrael added, much to my amusement.
Faith grumbled but didn’t say anything as I surveyed our situation.
There were eight teams in total, counting ours. Each match had to be no longer than fifteen minutes. I assumed this was because they didn’t want to drag out the fighting because watching people kill each other could get so boring. I lowered my head and rolled my eyes. If neither team finished their kills in the allotted time, they both died. I had a hard time believing she would kill her own people. After all, they were what made her powerful. No, I was sure that rule only applied to us three.
That made for one hour of fighting for the first round. The second round with the four remaining teams consisting of two fights allowed for twenty minutes each and the final battle with the last two teams was thirty minutes. So, I just had to survive less than two hours worth of fighting. I could do that.
I had hopes we wouldn’t have to go first so we could see how the tournament was played. So far, the only rules I could gather was that we couldn’t leave the field. That would result in automatic death for the whole team. However, our team was called up first. I figured Yasmine knew this was disadvantageous. Of course, if we won, it allowed for the most rest time. I guess she didn’t have that much faith in us.
Since we were up first, maybe we would go up against Dante’s team. It wasn’t because I thought we could beat him easily. I just figured that if we did beat him, it would all be down hill from there since I assumed he was our strongest opponent. But, yet again, Yasmine didn’t do us any favors and we were up against a group of seemingly all wraiths. It looked like she wasn’t going to take for granted that we would lose and wanted to save her right hand for later when we would most likely be too tired. If we made it past the second round and so did Dante, I was very sure Yasmine would not have us fight first again and ensure Dante’s group fought first and us second so that if we won, we’d be tired as hell by the time we got to round three. Of course, we might also be hopped up on adrenaline. Who knew what Azrael’s angel reserves allowed for them and Faith had the bond of her Six to help power her, although Amina being sleep might affect their energy boosting abilities.
At the thought of the Six, I looked back over to Felix who stared out onto the field with still angry red eyes. If he was coherent, why hadn’t he gotten someone from the Six to come help him? Had Yasmine locked his mind so that he couldn’t telepathically communicate? I’d heard of that happening before. Felix had mentioned something similar occurring with Amina when she was banished to Ireland several months ago.
Faith patted me on the back. “Head in the game, Fran.”
She was right, of course, but it was going to be a challenge to ignore Felix lying there without wanting to run right to him. I looked to our opponents. There was nothing physically concerning about them. They were all men, very youthful in appearance. However, a wraith’s strength came through their magic. They would be deceptively strong and they had the ability to rip your throat out with just one bite. They also were holding various weapons. Swords, axes and what appeared to be a sledgehammer.
Faith tapped her fist together as if recharging her already glowing tattoos. Azrael took out their gigantic sickle from thin air, and I grounded myself, lifting my sword to swing.
A loud horn blared and the clock began. We only had fifteen minutes to kill these guys and we hadn’t talked strategy.
“Let them come to us,” Azrael said in a low voice. “Conserve your energy.”
I gave a curt nod in understanding.
The trio raced at us, growling like animals. I caught the eye of one of the men, holding the sword, I guess he wanted to spar. He looked like a man on a mission as he raced towards me, eyes laser focused. When he was only several feet away, he veered off course and swung at Faith, who jumped back, narrowly missing his sword, which sliced into just the thread of her light jacket. Clever fellow.
However, I didn’t have time to get pissed about my miscalculation. My skin tingled as the air buzzed behind me. I dropped and rolled forward, just missing the massive sledgehammer holding wraith. He raced towards me in a blur and I flipped backwards into a stance, swinging my sword before my feet touched the ground. My weapon clanged against his, leaving a very unpleasant vibration that rocked my body.
The man swung again and I teleported away, appearing behind him and striking forward, stabbing into the man’s back. He howled and spun around before I could pull the sword out, flinging me to the side. I ran towards him and teleported in mid-run, grabbing my sword back from his body just as he sped away. Damn, these wraiths were fast.
“Behind you!” I heard Azrael’s voice.
I lowered to the ground but that wasn’t the right move because I caught an axe right in my left shoulder. I screamed as agonizing pain rocked my body, burring my vision. I teleported several feet away and struggled to my feet. I had no time to wait for my fae/demon magic to heal my arm. My arm burned with shocking pain, and nausea hit my stomach. Believe it or not, I’d been cut in the shoulder with an axe before. Life of a hitwoman. However, this pain felt ten times worse. I had been out of the pain game for a while.
I couldn’t focus on the pain. Sledgehammer dude was missing from my vision. Which meant one thing. I lowered into a crouching spin and swiped my sword out, cutting into the wraith appearing behind me. My sword bit into his leg, severing the leg with one slice.
Damn, Dad. What was this sword made of?
The wraith toppled forward, off balance and I tumbled to the side to avoid being crushed. I jumped up as the now one-legged wraith moved to their back, hand still holding the sledgehammer. I swung my sword above my head but caught him glance behind me. Instead of hitting him, I spun around and met my sword with the other sword welding wraith. Why were they all taking turns on me? I was sure Yasmine had given them their focus.
He swung at me again and I struggled to match his speed with my impaired arm.
“Five minutes!” Cried an announcer from the podium.
Damn, we had to end this. Had we killed anyone?
Sword guy swung again and I blocked him with my sword, then quickly kicked him in the privates with all my force. I have never heard a scream that high pitched before. I wondered if it was because I had my special retractable blade boots on. I guessed it hurt getting stabbed in the privates.
The wraith hunched forward, knees pressed together and one hand covering his now bloody privates. I didn’t waste a second and swung my sword up, quickly beheading him. I spun around to finish off the one-legged wraith but Azrael had already taken care of him, kicking the wraith’s head from his body like a football. Their sickle bloodied. I turned to my left and saw
that Faith had taken care of the axe wraith, its body quickly deflating to an empty skin suit.
The horn blared again and the announcer called out our victory.
The crowd booed. Assholes.
We left the field and sat on the perimeter, looking at the four other battles and studying our opponents. Some were stronger, bigger and faster than the wraiths we just beat. Others were much weaker.
At the end of the first round, there was a brief intermission where the audience was given time to grab more food and drink. It was sickening that they were watching us kill each other while chomping on hotdogs like they were at a freaking baseball game.
I looked back over to Felix who was still immobile. His eyes were closed now but I knew he wasn’t asleep. “What if while we are fighting, one of us just teleports to him and gets him out?”
Faith tilted her head from side to side. “We did something like that a while ago when he was unjustly found guilty of murder. Some of us battled the pack police back in Silver Spring while Lisa teleported him out of there. That was before he knew he could teleport himself. You know, come to think of it, Felix keeps getting captured for something or another. For a guy that big we constantly have to save his ass.”
She had a point there. He was the biggest damsel in distress I’d ever seen.
Azrael shook their head. “As sadly accurate as that is, that plan wouldn’t work. There are too many variables. We don’t know what kind of spell is keeping him bound. We don’t know how to prevent her from teleporting him back again. I’m not willing to risk his life without knowing for certain.”
I didn’t tell them that I doubted we would get Felix back by playing by the rules anyway. We’d win this whole thing and they could easily change their mind about letting him go. They were demons, after all. If that happened, I’d have to call dad to break him out quickly.
Round two soon began and we found out who we’d be battling next. I got tired just looking at them but I’d have to pull from my reserves. My left shoulder wasn’t fully healed but I could move it with less pain attached.
Faith cursed beside me. “Why do they all look like they used to play for the NFL? Including that woman. Damn, they're large.”
I ran my tongue over my front teeth as I studied them. They were huge. All three looked like they were over six foot. One of them, the male, looked vaguely familiar. I kept staring until recognition took hold. He was the father of the little girl we’d saved. I took a picture of her parents so that I would remember to kill them. It was just unfortunate that the wraith in the mother’s skin wasn’t out there. No matter, I would find her.
In the meantime, I had to keep my head in the game and in this game, our opponents were well-armed. One had a bow and arrow, another a sledgehammer, and the final one, the dad skinsuit, had what appeared to be a large razor-sharp boomerang. Where the hell did they get some of these weapons? I was being dense. Of course, I knew. From their powerful demon Queen. She had all sorts of access to demonic and underworldly weapons to let them use. And it made total sense why it hurt more to get cut with those weapons. The wounds would be healing slower as well. Just great.
Like I thought, we didn’t go first and I spent the time watching Dante’s team annihilate their opponents in under twenty minutes. It was slightly intimidating. I was mildly surprised that they were actually killing each other. This wasn’t their usual norm and perhaps they were playing a tiny bit fair by having everyone’s life up for grabs, not just ours.
When they were finished, the horn blared for our time to start. Like the first round, we didn’t run for them. However, they didn’t run for us either.
We weren’t surprised. They’d done the same thing during their first-round battle. However, I had a plan that I’d shared as soon as I saw that. I looked over to Azrael and the angel nodded at me. We then teleported and reappeared in front of and behind one of the male wraiths holding the sledgehammer. I immediately stuck my sword in his back and Azrael thrust their fist in the man’s chest, ripping out his heart. We had agreed earlier to both double up on the first wraith on the right which happened to be sledgehammer wraith.
The two remaining wraiths charged at Faith who leapt high in the air before lowering down and kicking the bow and arrow holding female wraith clear out of the field. Her power was impressive. We had no idea how far she’d sent the woman. The wraiths were fast, but we hoped it would buy us enough time to take out the remaining boomerang wraith.
As Azrael beheaded the sledgehammer wraith for good measure, Faith and I went after the boomerang wraith. He zoomed out of the way and flung the boomerang towards us. We separated, missing the weapon. However, instead of it returning to him, it changed course and zoomed towards me.
I ran like my life depended on it because it did. However, I could hear the sound of the boomerang cutting the air way too close behind me. I dove to the ground, looking up to see the boomerang sail past me before flipping and coming back my way except at a lower angle. Way too low for me to remain on the ground. It would slice the top of my head off even if I smashed my face into the grass. When all this was said and done, I really needed to invest in one of those weapons. But for now, I got up and played a game of teleport around the field as the boomerang continued to chase me. I had to either disable it or kill the wraith.
I reappeared just as the boomerang was inches away from me and batted it back with my sword, sending it spinning. I could see my sword had cut into it. Perhaps if I kept slicing away at it, that would do the trick. Or leave two halves of a boomerang to come at me.
I readied my sword as the boomerang spun back my way but suddenly, it dropped to the ground several feet away from me. I looked up and found Faith bashing in the head of the wraith owner until it didn’t really look like the wraith had a face anymore. It was safe to say the creature was dead, although I could see it had taken a sizable chunk out of Faith’s forearm. No wonder she was pounding it into oblivion. I was a little disgruntled that Faith got to be the one to kill the parent killing wraith but I’d get over it.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose and I dropped low, spinning around in time to see Azrael in front of me, stumbling backwards. A steel arrow the size of my sword protruded through the angel’s chest. They had jumped in front of me to save me. I wouldn’t let this moment go to waste.
I got up and raced to the angel.
Azrael dropped to their knees, clearly not okay. “Don’t mind me,” the angel said through gritted teeth as they grabbed the arrow. “Finish this.”
I gave them a curt nod and looked forward as the female wraith let loose another arrow, this time in Faith’s direction. Faith jumped to the side, falling to the ground but the arrow changed course and zoomed back towards her at a downward diagonal.
I took out one of my shuriken and flung it at the wraith who was now aiming her arrow at me. Just as she pulled the bow, the shuriken caught in her throat. I swiped my index finger in the air to my right and the shuriken dug further into the wraith’s skin, slicing deeply across her throat. The wraith’s eyes bulged and she dropped her weapon, grabbing at the star making good work of decapitating her. She yanked it out, her neck gushing blood, the severing only halfway complete. Faith rushed to her side and landed a forceful punch to the wraith’s head, tearing it away from the rest of her neck.
“Teamwork makes the dream work,” she said with a menacing grin, her face splattered with blood. I think she was actually enjoying this fight.
I looked back at the platform. We were done with a couple of minutes to spare.
“Call that shit!” Faith shouted at the announcer who glared at us before sounding the horn.
I looked over to Dante who gave me a wide sharped tooth grin. He was holding a blow torch. Really? And I though the boomerang was bad. He rolled his shoulders back. “This will be fun.”
“There will be no interim. We will go into the final round at the sound of the horn,” the announcer called. “But first, we must make a substitution.”<
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I frowned and looked as one of the wraiths on Dante’s team left the field. “Wait a fucking minute. I thought no one could leave the field!”
The announcer sneered at me. “We made a rule change. Sue us.”
Faith kicked the grass, cursing as she headed over to Azrael. “This asshole. I knew they would pull some last-minute shit.”
I wasn’t surprised either. It’s what I’d feared.
She helped the angel to their feet. The arrow was now gone but it would heal slow if it was demonic. “Then we can break the rules too.”
“Except this set-up isn’t in our favor,” Azrael huffed, face scrunched in pain.
We watched as a figure approached the field and I cursed upon seeing one of Monica’s angels, Dean, appear. He looked dead-eyed and unbothered about his situation. I looked to Azrael and the angel’s eyes were wide with furry. We’d come here to help rescue Dean, we couldn’t fight him. However, if we didn’t kill him, we couldn’t rescue Felix. There was no question who was more important to me but for Azrael I wasn’t so sure. This made me hate Monica even more. Here we were having to fight her people and she was nowhere in sight. She should be here fighting with us. If I had to kill this angel, I didn’t want any repercussions from it.
“I can’t kill him,” Azrael whispered, shoulders sagging.
I don’t think I’d ever seen the angel look so defeated before. “You won’t have to. Maybe this is the moment that we risk getting Felix out of here. They clearly aren’t going to play fair. Even if we win, they would have gotten us to kill an angel.”
Faith shook her head, her lips a thin line of anger. “Assuming they hold on to the deal. Do we want to risk it?”